in the remaining quarters of this year. those are big numbers. let us enjoyit.americahashad a hardship. we are now coming out of it. all right. if all this wasn't good enough news, pending home sales today came in surprisingly strong for the month of february. cnbc's diana olick will give us the full report. >> a big surprise on the pending home sales index which most thought would be flat in february thanks to bad weather, but it was up 8.2%. this is based on contracts signed, not closings. realtors are calling it a hint at a spring surge. the month to month rose 9% in the northeast, up nearly 22% in the midwest, up 9% in the south, but it fell nearly 5% in the west. so is it the start of the spring surge perhaps helped by the end of the home buyer tax credit? could be, but the concern is still about a new wave of foreclosures. in fact, today the administration's short sale program goes in to effect. the government will pay home enowner, lenders and eninvestors to get short sales done quickly. it's when a lender allows the troubled borrower to sell the home for less than the value of the

hours. what a waste. thank you. >>> coming up,canamericatrulymaximize its future to grow under the current tax system and future tax threat? i'm going to ask house members paul ryan and billy pascal when we come back. a senior at william and mary has the story better than all of us combined. let's just scrap the code and start over. gecko: uh, you wanted to see me sir? boss: come on in, i had some other things you can tell people about geico - great claims service and a 97% customer satisfaction rate. show people really trust us. gecko: yeah right, that makes sense. boss: trust is key when talking about geico. you gotta feel it. why don't you and i practice that with a little exercise where i fall backwards and you catch me. gecko: uh no sir, honestly... uh...i don't think...uh... boss: no, no. we can do this. gecko: oh dear. vo: geico. fifteen minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. >>> there you see. that's the new york city tea party gathering. their rally is going on. don't know who is speaking. we'll talk to lou dobbs later in the program because he will be sp

about the contractfromamericaonthis program. in fact, we unveiled them with ryan hecker a week ago. they are talking about constitutional limits to government, constitutional restraints on spending, on taxing. indeed on repealing obamacare. are these the principles guiding your decisions, your journeys, your travels and your endorsements? >> they're very consistent with the criteria we're using. we're looking for people not going to come to the senate to take on the bacon. that's what's gotten us trillions of dollars in debt. folks who swear off earmarks who want to repeal obamacare, who believe in limited federal government, keeping their oath of office. these are not right wing ideas. they are right in the middle of where most americans are. so i think that's why candidates like marco rubeo and marlin stutsman will do well. america has wakened up. it's not about political philosophy. it's about common sense. don't spend more than we are bringing in. stop adding to the debt. this appeals to democrats, republicans and independents. that's why i think we'll have a great election as

, citigroup, bankofamerica, morganstanley as well as jpmorgan and deutsche bank. interestingly, some banks off of wall street faired much better, raymond james or stifel. check it out, analysts like citigroup saying it's a black eye, but probably not life threatening. oppenheimer downgraded the stock, but they said it would be good for goldman sachs if other firms get charged. ubs said the uninvestable label is back and that further action could happen and seeing business going away while dick bove said someone must fall on their sword although the stock's a buy. in the near term, investors will be waiting to see if more charges will file as well as if goldman can keep the streak alive when it reports earnings tuesday morning. back to you. >> all right. and that was matt nesto with an interesting point we're going to be following up on a couple of moments. someone must fall on their sword. by the way, the one man the s.e.c. is charging today still works today/tonight at goldman sachs. even he has not yet fallen on his sword. here's jim cramer on the fallout. >> you never want to be too san

for the contractfromamerica. >>>finally, get this, a new poll shows a virtual dead heat for the 2012 presidential race between texas congressman ron paul and president obama. that is right. and another poll shows republicans lead the general ballot in november midterms. fasten your seat belts, everybody, "the kudlow report" begins right now. >>> good evening, everyone. i'm larry kudlow. welcome back where we still believe free market capitalism is the best path to prosperity. here's my thoughts on the money politics news of the day. as i said stocks roared today. humongous v-shaped recovery for retail sales, beat everybody's expectations. a 1.6% jump in march, a 7.6% gain over the past year. those are big numbers. speaking of v-shaped recovery, we had very strong business sales. think top line revenues for corporate profits. and a solid increase for business inventories. so i'm going to stay with the v-shaped recovery theme, at least through the end of 2010 before your taxes go up. stocks had a banner day. the dow up 104 points, the s&p 500 cruised through the all important 1200 benc

's class war fare policies make their way to our shores hereinamerica? isthis a high tax movie we are going to see once again in the states? we have robert guest of the economist and dan mitchell of kato to discuss this when we return. i certainly hope not. then again, higher tax rates loom. >>> we continue our ongoing coverage of the run-up to next week's april 15th tax day. there's news from london. on the eve of their snap election, britain's tough marginal tax rate is being jacked up from 40% to 50%. is this move coming to a theater near you here in america? and did anyone say tea party revolution? let's talk. we have robert guest, lexington columnist and washington correspondent for the economist, and dan mitchell, senior fellow at the kato institute. robert guest, it's a pleasure. i'm familiar with your work. thank you for coming on the show. you probably know more about british politics than i do. although i was over there a month or two ago and did neet with some of the high command torrys. if they would stand up and say i'm going to repeal the 15% tax rate, i think they'd

. it doesn't really work from what united needs, especiallylatinamericaandeurope presence, which they lack. but giving that they can't get that, maybe this is what they're going to do instead. they have to do something. they're not doing well as the status quo. >> nobody's making any money. that's not true. southwest is profitable. i don't think anybody else is profitable. is this like too many seats, chasing too few passengers? is this the ongoing problem in that business? >> no, i don't think it's so much too many seats chasing too few passengers. look, you know, and in this respect i disagree with almost everybody. i think the industry -- this is an industry that needs some regulation. the fact is,it isn't that we have too many seats, it's that we have too many alternative products offering exactly the same thing. let me give you a great example. delta has recently announced they're going to add 12 daily flights between laguardia and chicago. we have all the service we need between laguardia and chicago. delta brings nothing to the party. all they're going to do is drive down

is in the air. i've been a big supporter of the tea party contractwithamerica. we'lltalk about that, too, with one of its leaders. but first up, let's take a look at the v-shaped recovery numbers from today. are we going to put this up on the board? let's hit the first one, put it up, let's go. first one up, capital gains, durable goods. cap x, can we get that up on the screen? either the full screen or this screen? all right, there we go. durable goods numbers came out today. notice if i get this right the v-shaped recovery. in fact, total durable goods are now rising at, what, 10% from minus 30% not too long ago. this is a huge improvement. if we put the second chart up on the board, we will get the key core durable goods which is the cap x expenditures from businesses. can we get that on the screen? the other chart is not in yet. i'm sorry to report that. we have two other charts to put up here. the producer chart index chart from commodities and for goods. here's single family home sales. i don't really regard this as a v. all i'm saying is they picked up a lot in march. init's one o

this repeatedly -- we have to have a thriving financial sector. because essentially part of what'smadeamericasosuccessful is our ability to -- if we've got a dream and we want to go get some financing for ap ipod, the next invention out there, that we are able to go and get investors to finance our dream and make it happen. so we have to have a thriving and effective financial sector. >> reporter: so it is god's work. >> i think it is very important work. but we have to have basic rules of the road in place to make sure investors, consumers, shareholders, the economy as a whole, are protected against exce excess. are protected against wild gambles that are taken purely because it's good for somebody's year-end bonus as opposed to because there's some economic function that actually contributes to society as a whole. >> reporter: larry, one interesting postscript, we talked about the issue of derivatives you're going to discuss with senator durbin. blanche lincoln as gone further than the president's own administration in proposing that did he say anything about the liquidation business. and hi

and the fdic. the american people have rejected, to use your phrase,bailoutamerica. andwhat the democrats and what the administration are advancing here is really, again, taking the wall street bailout of a year and a half ago, and in the authority that's being extended to this and future administrations, they're making that bailout permanent. >> just a couple of things. a recent rasmussen poll shows 34% of americans want more regulation of financials, but 47% actually oppose. that's amazing. 47% oppose financial regulation. and as you probably know, the pew poll recently, 80% of americans completely mistrust what's going on in washington. my pal dan henninger of "the wall street journal" wrote a great column about that today. i, like you, think there are some positives in this bill. senator chris dodd worked hard on this bill, and it's a much more open process than the obama health care process, that's for sure. congressman, why not just put all of these failed banks, if they occur, into bankruptcy court. that's the simple. have some bankruptcy court reform. take the discretion away. jus

the recession ended last summer, so q3, q4, and q1 of this year, an thank heavens were growingagain.americaneedsit. i want to just note, we still have some v shapes on this it does track on real gdp. that is some good news. let me clear this and go to the next one. the best part of this story was a large increase, 13.5% in big visit spending. this is called cap ex. this is really important. businesses are profitable it's a u and a v. i'm just going to draw a "v." use your imagination. after all, that's what art is all about, and i'm married to a great artist, so i will draw a page from her. this is a harbinger of much better things, including profits to expand plant and equipment, but to hire workers. so i like that a lot. personal spending went up 3.6%, real personal spending. and here's two interesting points. number one, we see a v-shape there. we're also seeing, by the way, the stuff about the new normal, where consumption goes way down. it's not happening. connell assumption is still about 70% of gross domestic product, so no collapse of personal spending and consumer spending. the f

totally demonizing, demoralizing, and evendestroyingamerica's greatglobal banks. guess what? we need these banks for full-fledged economic recovery. guess what? we also need them for america's full-fledged leadership in the global financial system in the world economy. in other words, can we figure out a way, please, to not throw the baby out with the bath watb? as we get to our panelists, i'm going to withhold my opinions this evening. i want to report just the facts and different points of view and hopefully let you, the viewers, decide. this thing is going to go on for a while. we have ron gib anywhere, currently of sadis & goldberg. we have brad simon at simon and partners. thank you for coming on the "the kudlow report." i want your take on these two processes. aca was the portfolio selector, but paulson was heavily involved. goldman sachs never put this in. they didn't believe it was material for the prospectus, what's your quick thought and the presentation we made, which i might add comes from the s.e.c. complaint. i'm not making this up. >> why would they not have given full

. as i say in "after the hangover" there's somethingaboutamerica--there's something in the air here that makes americans, liberty loving, love limited governments, low taxation. we've had things like the tea party going back -- >> economic freedom. preserve economic freedom. constitutional restraints on government. >> yes. and we've had this -- these outpourings of libertarian sentiment since the '30s. michael barone in a seminar we did at the heritage found days the other day pointed out that in the late '30s you had this kind of tea party movement breaking out against the new deal. he thinks if we hadn't had world war ii facing us, we might very well -- he might very well have suffered grave opposition. >> so we're faced now -- we have improving economy and great stock market. we're faced with this wall of taxes including the 40% dividends tax which is off the charts, even 20 points higher than president obama wanted. can the tea partiers and this revolt you describe, had libertarianism, can they be politically effective in november and stop these tax hikes? >> i think they alread

's what ronald reagan did. you made them respect you. and you created a situationwhereamericadidmore business because they were respected and not in a weakened position. >> stocks went up anyway today. but i just want to add that in. >> they went up 100 instead of 12. it's all relative. >> he gave a big news conference. again, reagan said trust but verify. a lot of people think these nuclear deals do not. a lot of them think it is cutting back american nuclear development. if we don't lead the world, who is going to lead the world? this is something that troubles me besides taxes and all the rest. gentlemen, you are terrific. jim lecamp, bob frohlich, thank you. >>> did fraud lead to washington mutual's demise? a very nasty story. former senior wamu executives grilled on capitol hill today. mary thompson has the full report. >>> and still to come, i'm joined by our two powerhouse economic thinkers, the godfathers of supply side economics. nobel laureate robert mundell and art laffer. they are going to critique obamanomics and give us their outlook on currencies, the yuan, the euro, t

and carte blanche to declare every companyinamericasystemicallyimportant and break it up without judicial appeal and that's what's in the dodd bill. >> we'll come back and talk about that. that's a pretty strong indictment. what about the fed? the fed meets this tuesday and wednesday. did you than? it hasn't received much attention because of this thin reg stuff. maybe it's time to end free money if profits are booming and the economy is growing at 5% or 6%. i'm kudlow. please stay with us. >>> we are talking v-shaped recovery and v-shaped stock market and although his technical line, i don't know what's happened, the lines have gone down, i do want to put up brian wesbury's book up, "it's not as bad," with my good paul stefan abrams who has had great calls in recent years both negative calls and positive calls. stefan, let's step back from financial regulation and washington and tea parties. let's look at this optimistic scenario on the economy. what's your investment strategy in where do people invest right in here? >> well, again, the biggest theme of our lives, larry, is stil

mundell, will give us their solutions on how to growtheamericaeconomyso that we remain first around the world. speaking of which, you're watching cnbc, we are first in business worldwide. compare a well equipped lexus es, to a well-equipped buick lacrosse. get inside each. and see what you find. if perfection is what you pursue, this just might change your course. meet the new class of world class. the twenty-ten lacrosse, from buick. may the best car win. >>> all right. welcome back, everybody. this segment is about the letter "v." and the letter "v" signifies a stronger than expected recovery due to the release of respect statistics that suggests we could be headed for a boom, at least for the next several quarters. before we introduce our guests, my great friend, university of michigan professor marque perry on his blog, ten reasons why the economic recovery is real. i'm taking some liberties in saying it's a v-shaped recovery. bear with me, i'm not going to do a lot of discussion here. i'm just going to show you what it is. first chart, the commodities, which has everything in t

that talks about how many jobs china hascostamerica, sothis is part of an organized camepaign o press china into moving the currency. >> the talk is good, but of all people, i hate to quote, the world bank. they said that it should be revalued because of potential inflationary money and credit policies and john, as you know, they have been tightening credit slowly and a modest appreciation of the currency would serve that purpose. in other words, rather than the left wing assault that china is preventing our jobs and trade deficits, would it work for china in terms of their domestic needs to impose monetary and credit strength with a slight evaluation of the kournsy? >> i think it's the issue that's the most important. the fact is today, inside china, they have more deflation pressures than inflation pressures so the timing's not good, but they do worry about bubbles in stock markets and property markets and that would help some there. but the trick is, when you begin to appreciate a currency like they did in july 2005, it's like come along, speculators, bring your money to china. at

:00 a.m., "jobsinamerica," liveanalysis surrounding the unemployment report. rules of the road today. the obama administration mandated new fuel efficiency standards for american cars. is this coming at exactly the wrong time? steve han deldelsman from washin will have all the latest. and a debate about maybe drill, drill drill drill, no drill or drill down? tdd# 1-800-345-2550 that's why, at schwab, tdd# 1-800-345-2550 every online equity trade is now $8.95 tdd# 1-800-345-2550 no matter your account balance, how often you trade tdd# 1-800-345-2550 or how many shares... tdd# 1-800-345-2550 you pay what they pay what everyone pays: $8.95. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and you still get all the help tdd# 1-800-345-2550 t you expect from schwab tdd# 1-800-345-2550 millions of investors. one price. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 at charles schwab... tdd# 1-800-345-2550 investors rule. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 are you ready to rule? >>> so how about more regulations in washington? more than 35 miles per gallon. that's the obama administration's new standard for mileage on new cars by the year 2016. no one better t

among all the parties? >> there are disclosure materials, yes. >> okay. in the past 25years,americahasseen an increasing number and severity of financial crises. you have the savings and loan crisis, enron, the dotcom bubble, the housing bubble. what steps will wall street take to assure that there is not another financial crisis? >> listen, i think the financial reform is a good step. >> that we're working on now? >> that we're working on. there's gives and takes in it, a nld i'm not sure myself where -- nobody is -- where it would come out so the need for reform. i mentioned earlier the need for higher capital standards, systemic, you know, risk regulation. that's general, and obviously every firm needs to manage its risks very well and better than they have been doing in most cases. and i think in our case, particularly, you have to look also through every aspect of your business practices to make sure -- and to not be defensive, which there's a tendency to be, but to learn from prior -- you know, prior situations including the one we're in now and make sure that you do a bette